CITIGROUP Malaysia, via its electronic payment (e-payment) system CitiConnect, and with the Financial Process Exchange (FPX) infrastructure as its conduit, will become the first financial services group in Malaysia to offer account holders of other banks a facility to manage their e-payments online.

Citigroup country head for corporate and investment division Sanjeev Nanavati said Citibank Bhd would start conducting e-payment transactions through the system using the FPX platform by the end of this month. Citibank is the consumer arm of Citigroup.

According to Sanjeev, Citigroup expects more than 10 million bank account holders in the country to benefit from the service.

The service is only offered to account holders of FPX member banks, totalling nine currently. FPX is a multi-bank Internet payment system that offers consumer and merchants the convenience of account-based (current or savings) direct debiting riding on the Internet banking platform.

Citibank had early this year entered into an agreement with the Malaysian Electronic Payment System (1997) Sdn Bhd (MEPS) to become the latter's participating member bank to offer FPX services. MEPS is the provider of FPX services.

“CitiConnect is an e-payment system that integrates electronic information capturing capability at the point of payment. It provides real time notification of payment events by ensuring all parties – sellers and buyers – are informed when a specific transaction or event takes place.

“It also reduces cost of payments by up to 75% as one does not need to go to banks to make payments or pay via other physical channels. For this service, buyers need only register once for the payment service associated with each merchant registered on CitiConnect,'' Sanjeev noted.

The move to introduce the payment system was also in line with Bank Negara's strategy to promote greater adoption of and migration to more efficient electronic payment modes, especially among small- and medium-scale enterprises and merchants with a large number of recurring customers, he said.